


Into the Woods

by A S Lawrence (phoebesmum)



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Eavesdropping, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-13
Updated: 2009-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-04 09:49:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoebesmum/pseuds/A%20S%20Lawrence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The woods are lovely, dark and deep. And hide a secret Neil Perry would prefer not to have learned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Woods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leiascully](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/gifts).



> Written for Yuletide, December 2007; an extra Yuletide Treat for Leiascully.  
>  This can be read as a standalone, but, in my head at least, it's tied in to my earlier _DPS_ fanfic, _Secrets and Lies_.

It's cold in the woods; cold and grey and clammy. Neil isn't quite sure what he's doing there. He could be reading (or even writing!), he could be studying, he could be learning lines, he has leave to go into town – where it would also be cold and grey, but at least there would not be branches poking him and dripping water down the back of his neck – but something has driven him out here, away from his tight little circle of friends, out here alone with nothing but his thoughts for company.

Neil isn't, generally, a boy given to introspection; he's as open a book as any you might find in the library - what you see is, pretty much, exactly what you get. That's why this small act of rebellion of his, this whole thing with the forging of notes and the sneaking around behind his father's back, can go undetected: nobody expects it of him and so they don't see what's in front of their faces. There's a little twinge of guilt, somewhere far inside of him, but he tamps it down. This is the one, the only time – and if the play hadn't been so important to him, if his father weren't so unreasonable, then the lying wouldn't have been necessary. But after this, he'll settle down; he'll march to the beat of his father's drum, and be the perfect, obedient son he always has been.

Well … maybe. That was the original idea. He hadn't realised quite how bright a blaze acting would spark in his blood. It's almost like a drug, what little Neil knows of drugs: the more he has, the more he craves. It'll be hard, now, to let it go. So maybe he won't. Maybe this is the less-travelled road he was meant to take, not the familiar course – Ivy League, med school, a teaching hospital and then a private practice – he's been set on since the day of his birth.

In a way, he thinks, it'd be easier if this _was_ just a one-time thing. It's going to be hell trying to explain it to the old man. But it'll be okay. If it really is meant, then it _has_ to happen. He'll talk his father round. It might take some time and all the persuasion he can muster up, but he'll do it.

He has to. He must.

He's near the caves, he realises; his feet must have wandered there instinctively, of their own accord. He turns toward the entrance and, as he does, he hears voices, distant, echoing. The sound's distorted, but he thinks he hears Todd. He can't identify the other voice, and can't think who it might be. Todd's not close to any of the others, not really; he hangs on the fringes of the Dead Poets Society, accepted by the rest of the group almost entirely because of his link to Neil. Neil himself, he knows with no false modesty, is popular enough for the both of them.

The voices come again; there's laughter now. And perhaps it's the same distortion as before, but it's unlike Todd's usual laugh, that shy gurgle half-stifled behind his hand. It's unlike, in fact, any laughter that Neil has ever heard: low, and deep, and throaty. It stirs something inside him, something unfamiliar and, for no reason that he can name, he steps more quietly, clinging to the rock walls, staying in shadow.

He steals a quick, careful glance around the corner that conceals him, and his breath catches. Todd's there; his back's against the wall, his hands pressed flat against the stone, his head flung back, his face alight with a fierce, brilliant rapture. No: not rapture. _Ecstasy_. Neil would barely have known him, he seems so changed.

There's another boy in the cave. Neil can see nothing of him but his back, the soles of his shoes as he kneels, his hands holding Todd by the hips, the short, dark hair that Todd is grasping now, bringing the other boy's head closer …

Todd cries out, once, and falls back limply, and Neil gasps and he also falls back, back out of sight, back against the outside wall, his heart pounding, his mouth sour with … with disgust, yes, for the – there are no words bad enough for what he has just witnessed: _vile_, his mind supplies, and _sick_, and _perversion_.

That's what he should be feeling: he knows it. He knows that he should run back to Welton, tell someone what he's seen, bring down the wrath of God and the righteous on Todd and his partner in decadence. In _crime_.

He won't. He can't. Because Neil's parents raised him to be honest and truthful, no matter what the cost, and the honest truth is that what he has just witnessed didn't disgust him. Not at all: it thrilled him and excited him, aroused him and filled him with envy. With envy; and with despair. For he's seen how Todd sometimes looks at him, seen, and pretended he has not, passed off as hero worship what he knows in his heart, always has known, is love, love and desire, desire and hunger and a desperate, burning need.

All of it wasted because of his wanton, deliberate blindness. Wasted on – who? Which of them is deserving of this, of all that Todd (Todd, urgent and eager, the brightest and the best, of all of them the most promising) – that Todd has to offer?

It can only be Charlie, Neil thinks bitterly: Charlie, always the most daring, the bravest, the most outrageous. _Charlie_ would never have looked the other way. If Todd had looked at Charlie as he had looked at Neil, then Charlie would have known what to do.

Sick at heart, Neil waits in the shadows of the trees for his fear to be confirmed.

It takes a seeming age for the two boys finally to emerge from the cave mouth. Todd leads the way, still straightening his clothing, pressing the palms of his hands against his bright, flushed cheeks. The other boy follows, reaching out to straighten Todd's scarf, letting his hand slide beneath the fabric to rest against the exposed skin of Todd's neck. The light falls on his face and, as it does, Neil almost laughs.

_Knox Overstreet?_

Knox. 'I'm in love with Chris' Knox. What's Todd to him, then? A diversion? A novelty? A substitute?

Todd deserves better than that. Todd should be nobody's second-best.

Neil stays quiet as he watches his friends move away, but his mind is racing.

Maybe he's left it too late. Maybe this – this, whatever it is, this _thing_ with Knox is something real. But Neil doesn't think so.

Next time, he tells himself. Next time that Todd looks at me, next time I see that light in his eyes –

Next time, I shan't turn away from him.

Next time, I'll give him the answer he wants.

***


End file.
